Imperfect
by Mrs.Monster
Summary: From a tumblr prompt: Sherlock buys Molly a present and she has not a single clue as to why. Not in a relationship, so it's especially baffling.


_**(Disclaimer: I own nothing related to Sherlock. No copyright infringement intended.**_

_**Last night I asked for Sherlolly prompts on Tumblr, and got two responses. This is a one-shot for the first one.**_

_**Prompt: **__Sherlock buys Molly a present and she has not a single clue as to why. Not in a relationship, so it's especially baffling. -Thanks Petra Todd for this one!_

_****__The one-shot went a bit off the carefree tone I'd pictured it with, but hopefully you still like it!_

_****__As always, thanks to my life-mate, lifelesslyndsey for letting me talk at her about everything that I write. Or just passes through my head.)_

_****__Imperfect_

**...**_****__  
_

When Molly Hooper told people about what she did for a living, there was almost always one common line of questioning: _doesn't it ever get creepy? All alone in a room full of dead people? _

She'd always thought that this type of inquiry was completely ridiculous. They were dead, what harm could they do? It was logical to fear the living, not the dead and departed.

So when she found herself alone deep in the recesses of St. Bartholomew Hospital in the middle of the night, Molly was completely at ease. She was in the lab that was just a few doors down from the morgue, running a series of tests on a few nice samples of brain tissue. The room around her was dimmed, and mostly quiet save the whirr of the equipment. There was the stark, clean hospital smell that she was most at ease in, even after four years of the same day in and day out. Molly never tired of her work, she loved what she did, and she was completely content.

_Most of the time, anyway, _she thought as the door flew open, shattering her peaceful calm. Molly didn't have to look up from the LCD screen she'd been watching to know who it was. There was only one person who would barge into her lab at nearly one in the morning; the only downside to her job.

At least at times it seemed like a downside; at other times Sherlock Holmes felt like the best thing about her abnormal shifts at this hospital.

After the disastrous attempt to impress him at the Christmas party at 221 b, Molly avoided being left alone with Sherlock. Her humiliation, coupled with the very real possibility that Sherlock had been intimate with the woman who'd been laid out on her slab not so long ago, was just too much.

It was one thing to be repeatedly rejected by an oblivious man, as she'd come to believe Sherlock was, it was another if he had a very real knowledge of functioning relationships with the fairer sex. As unlikely as it seemed, Molly hadn't been able to work passed it.

Molly finally tore her eyes from the screen in front of her when Sherlock was silent for several moments. He seemed to be aggravated over something, not an uncommon occurrence, with both hands buried deep in his coat pockets, a deep crease in his forehead. Sherlock was staring intently at a point just above and to the right of her head, and Molly wished that he would just spit it out. Whatever he'd come here for, whatever clearance he needed, he needed to just ask and be done with it.

Clearing his throat, Sherlock pulled something from his pocket, dropped it onto the metal table and pushed it toward her with a finger. With surprise, Molly saw that it was a gift box; a plain white gift box, clumsily wrapped with shiny blue ribbon.

Still looking at a vague point above her head, Sherlock said, "I never got to thank you for your Christmas gift, and this isn't… I don't understand reciprocity just for obligation's sake, so this isn't… I just." He stopped and cleared his throat, the scowl on his face deepening. "This is for you."

Sherlock had gotten her a gift? Molly's fingers twined in the messy ribbon bow, and she looked up at him curiously. Why on earth would he do that? Molly searched her mind, trying to come up with something that she'd done for him that was out of the ordinary lately, and of course came up with nothing. Was this because she'd been avoiding him? Or did he just need something, possibly something outside of the normal favors?

Molly was decidedly wary, but when Sherlock sighed, somewhat impatiently she began tugging on the end of the bow. His eyes darted nervously around the room, but she looked away, toward the package. It was a small box, maybe the size of the palm of her hand.

The ribbon came away easily, and Molly lifted the lid.

Nestled on what looked to be a few white facial tissues was a bullet.

The metal was bent and twisted, impacted. Molly saw the dimmed lab lights glint off of something else in the box and noticed that a thin, delicate gold chain had been threaded through the base of the bullet.

Carefully, she lifted the necklace from the box. The tissue snagged on the chain, and she impatiently plucked it away.

Molly's heart was hammering in her chest, as she attempted to _deduce _the reason behind his gift. With Sherlock, you really never knew his true intentions unless he saw fit to let you in on his electric thought process. When she chanced a glance up at him, he wasn't looking at her but the open gift box.

She followed and looked back herself; a sheet of paper was folded and tucked tightly into the bottom of the small box.

Holding the necklace with one hand, she reached for the paper at the same time Sherlock did. Their eyes met, and Molly was surprised to find a look of apprehension cross his face just before she closed her fingers around the smooth paper.

Messy writing was scrawled across the unlined sheet:

_"You're a bit like this bullet. You've gotten inside me, Molly. Very few other things can say as much." _

Molly swallowed thickly; she'd daydreamed of a moment such as this enough times that it was bordering on shameful. Now it was actually happening… wasn't it? Not even he could _that _cruel, to take something to this extent just to gain access to a few pieces of lab equipment.

Laying the sheet of paper down, Molly mustered every bit of courage that she had in her five foot one inch frame and looked at Sherlock. His crystal-blue eyes seemed nearly desperate, as if he were actually waiting a response, as if he actually _cared_. The look was gone as soon as she'd noticed it, cool mask firmly in place.

Clinging to the strength she'd scrabbled from deep inside of her, Molly asked, "Will you help me put it on?"

He searched her face for a moment, reading all he needed to know; her acceptance of _whatever _it was he seemed to be giving her in that moment. Sherlock nodded, a short, jerky move.

Molly handed him the necklace, bullet that had actually been dug out of his _body _dangling from the sparking chain and turned, gathering her long hair, holding it off her neck.

Sherlock's arms came around her, his coat brushing the length of her body, and the metal of the necklace was cool against the skin of her throat.

"Where were you shot?"

His breath was hot against the back of her neck, lips against the shell of her ear as he worked the clasp of the chain.

"Two inches left of the heart."

Pearly teeth bit softly into her lower lip as the bullet rested above her own heart.

Realistically, Molly knew that the bullet didn't lay directly over her heart. It was a bit too centered for that. Still, she loved the idea that something of Sherlock's was so near to her heart. That the little bit of metal resting against her skin was once inside of him, was once nearly his end; now it rested with her.


End file.
